A weblog for professionals in electrical, electronic, mechanical and software engineering with content provided by the members of the Long Island Consultant's Network.

October 2009

October 27, 2009

The publication of most of this I saw in the WSJ October 19,2009. Also I researched the Internet for additional information. First just come basics. The molecular weight of lithium is close to 7 while the molecular weight of oxygen, O2, is 32. Carbon FWIW is 12.

Using air in this manner is NOT new—it has been done with zinc and is referred to as a ZINC-AIR battery.These I have seen referred to METAL-AIR batteries. The idea is that the discharge/charge cycle the battery draws oxygen from the atmosphere (air) and discharges oxygen to the atmosphere where it is readily absorbed.

The main weight saving is that you don't have store and carry the weight of the oxygen which is substantial.See first paragraph.

A new type of air-fuelled battery could give up to ten times (claim) the energy storage of designs currently available. This step-change in capacity could pave the way for a new generation of electric cars, mobile phones and laptops. For cars, some are rather glibly talking 500 miles per charge and recharge times measured in less than 30 minutes!

October 22, 2009

"In the Spotlight" was a feature in our old snail-mailed newsletter. It provided an opportunity for each member to describe his work and experience - sort of an extended "Elevator Speech". Jerry accepted the nomination for Chairman on the condition that someone else takes care of the refreshments for the meetings, and everyone contributes a post to the blog. So far, I haven't seen a tsunami of posts from our members, so I was wondering if reviving the Spotlight idea might encourage some activity. Not everyone took advantage of the original Spotlight self-promotion opportunity, but enough did, and it was interesting.

Writing these posts is pretty easy, once you establish an account and get the hang of it. I've forgotten how to get started. I think it starts with an invitation from Jerry which, I think, he extended to all the members. I still have trouble with inserting the break in a long article, so I'll stop here and avoid that problem.

October 20, 2009

AS SOLVENT--Supercritical carbon dioxide refers to carbon dioxide that is in a fluid state while also being at or above both its critical temperature and pressure, yielding rather uncommon properties. Carbon dioxide usually behaves as a gas in air at STP or as a solid called dry ice when frozen. If the temperature and pressure are both increased from STP to be at or above the critical point for carbon dioxide, it can adopt properties midway between a gas and a liquid. More specifically, it behaves as a supercritical fluid above its critical temperature (31.1 °C/88F) and critical pressure (72.9 atm/7.39 Mpa), expanding to fill its container like a gas but with a density like that of a liquid. Supercritical CO2 is becoming an important commercial and industrial solvent due to its role in chemical extraction in addition to its low toxicity and environmental impact. The relatively low temperature of the process and the stability of CO2 also allows most compounds to be extracted with little damage or denaturing.

HIGH EFFICIENCY GAS TURBINE--There is considerable work being done to develop an enhanced version of a gas-turbine power production cycle to operate at temperatures near 550 °C. This is a significant usage, which could have large implications for bulk thermal and nuclear generation of electricity, because the supercritical properties of carbon dioxide at above 500 °C and 20 Mpa (197.4atm) enable very high thermal efficiencies, approaching 45 percent. This could increase the electrical power produced per unit of fuel required by 40 percent or more. Given the huge volume of extremely polluting fuels used in producing electricity, the potential environmental impact of such an efficient cycle could be very large.

October 16, 2009

We'll get to Kenya in the third paragraph. But first: Drought exists on mountaintops worldwide. Climatologists and other scientific types study the North Atlantic Oscillation, El Nino, La Nina, Southern Oscillation, and lots of other named phenomena to explain the occurrence of droughts and predict when it might rain in a certain place. These relationships might explain why, at any given time, we have drought in some places, but not in others. But drought everywhere? My simple mind looks for some worldwide phenomenon that could reduce or stop precipitation on all mountains. How about increased aerosols?

Aerosols can be clumps of gas molecules, liquid particles, solid particles like soot or dust, particles of one substance coated with a film of something else. They can come from perfectly natural processes like photosynthesis. They directly reduce the amount of sunshine reaching the Earth, and they have indirect effects, such as acting as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Many research investigations are showing that a limited amount of atmospheric moisture condensing on too many CCN makes for water and ice particles that are too small to coalesce and grow large enough to precipitate. They just float aloft in long-lived clouds that shade the Earth without raining or snowing. The resulting drought makes the soil turn to dust, further increasing the supply of aerosols.

October 14, 2009

This dust-up has been going on for some time and surfaced again in the courts this last July. For the LICN blog readers I have tried to capsulize the dust-up to make it easier to understand.

PAICE HISTORY- Paice was founded by Dr. Alex Severinsky in 1992. Dr. Severinsky received his M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Kharkov College of Radioelectronics in Kharkov, Ukraine, in 1967, and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Institute for Precision Measurements in Radioelectronics and Physics in Moscow in 1975. He came to the United States in 1978 as a refugee, with $800 in his pocket and a wife and young son to support, and found work in Texas as an electrical engineer in the oil service industry. Dr. Severinsky first conceived of creating improved hybrid vehicles while waiting in long lines for gasoline in Dallas during the oil shortages of the late 1970s. Frustrated, he imagined that there had to be a better way to power an automobile than simply by a gasoline-powered engine. He looked at alternative approaches – including pure electric and fuel cell vehicles – but reasoned that using a full hybrid electric powertrain was the optimal approach. However, with a family to support and little knowledge of how to raise funds for a business, Dr. Severinsky had to devote his time to several jobs in high technology industries. Once he established himself, he began to actively focus on his ideas for commercially successful hybrid vehicles.

October 07, 2009

These new buses are a radical departure from earlier designs, since they aren't powered by traditional piston powered engines, but diesel turbines that generate power for electric motors.

The low-floor, hybrid electric DesignLine bus runs on a diesel turbine engine, instead of the diesel piston engine that powers the vast majority of New York City Transit's 4,600 buses. The turbine produces alternating current, which charges the battery that powers the motor that drives the wheels. Like other hybrid electric models used by the authority, the new DesignLine bus has regenerative braking, meaning that the batteries are recharged each time the driver applies the brake.

The buses have a capacity of 35 or 37 seats, depending on the configuration, with standing room for 30.

DesignLine is based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The cost for a new hybrid bus? $550,000, or $200,000 more than the typical price of $350,000 per standard diesel powered bus. Some reports suggest that the price for a DesignLine hybrid is over $600,000, but that probably depends on the specifics requested by the bus services purchasing.

October 06, 2009

Printouts and notes that belong in one folder seem to hide in another folder without leaving a reminder of where they went. It happened to a plot of mean sea level (MSL) in the North Sound of Grand Cayman Island. I wanted to see if there was any correlation between that sea level and the volume transport of the Florida Current. The missing North Sound data turned up in a folder of printouts of the Gulf of Mexico radar altimeter maps. I had been checking the correlation between the length of the Loop Current path and the MSL at the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico. I stashed the MSL data in that folder when I had to clear a spot on the desk to take care of a chore that I was supposed to do instead of the oceanography stuff that I want to work on.